Sydney Festival 2016Schubert's Winterreise

Every January, Sydney Festival enlivens and transforms Sydney with a bold cultural celebration based on the highest quality art and big ideas.

The program is kaleidoscopic in its diversity, from burlesque circus to Chicago rap to Dutch theatre; from contemporary dance to family programs to traditional Indigenous arts practice. In all, the program comprises around 370 performances and around 100 events performed by over 700 artists in more than 30 venues each year. Inclusive programming, a broad range of free events and accessible pricing policies for the ticketed shows means that Sydney Festival is open to all, welcoming Sydneysiders and visitors from wherever they live.

Why did we fund this project? The Nelson Meers Foundation is delighted to be supporting Schubert's Winterreise, in which videos by iconoclastic South African artist William Kentridge parallel the 24 leider of Schubert's quintessentially Romantic song cycle, Winterreisse. The incomparable Schubert interpreter, Mattias Goerne, sings the full song cycle in an installation designed by Kentridge, whose stoic mixed-media landscapes refuse to yield to the despair and egocentrism of Schubert's heartbroken wanderer as he walks alone, broken by love, through a wintry nightscape.

The project is a seamless blend of diverse art forms, each enhancing the other and combining to evoke a subtle yet powerful meditation on experience, time and memory. It is a significant co-production between Aix-en-Provence Opera Festival, Wiener Festwochen, KunstFestSpiele Herren hausen Hannover, Grand Theatre de Luxembourg, Lincoln Centre NY, Opera de Lille and Holland Festival.